Speed and Status
by antepathy
Summary: IDW Blurr/Drift Drift/Perceptor, sticky. Drift joins the Wreckers and finds that the fighting is actually the *easy* part
1. Chapter 1

NC-17  
>IDW<br>Blurr/Drift  
>sticky, the kind of degrading sex rockstars have with groupies, minor consent issues<br>A/N Yeah, if you like Blurr, you won't like him here. He's a celebrity, even in the Autobots, he's still 'special' because of his speed. So he still has that narcissist's attitude toward others.

Drift was hard not to notice. So Blurr really didn't blame himself for the way his optics kept sliding over to the white mech as he squatted on the floor of the small craft. Perceptor—what was left of him—had been stowed in a CR pod until they could do better on board the _Axion._ His energon, pink and scintillant, marred the strange mech's white armor in long streaks and smudges. And Drift just...sat there, stained, dirty, that long sword thing he wore behind his back tilted to one side. Not shocked, not nervous, just...there.

Perceptor had noticed the armor, read it as something alien, foreign. They'd all noticed the lack of faction marks. But Blurr had noticed...the beautiful. Honestly, Drift was probably the most breathtaking mech he'd ever seen. Well, and he meant this unironically, outside himself. But he'd paid a lot of money, and a lot of attention hiring the best designers, engineers, and aestheticians to look as good as he did.

Drift carried his beauty as naturally, as thoughtlessly, as though it meant nothing to him. And that intrigued Blurr. For as long as anything properly could.

"Blurr," he announced, lowering himself into an elegant half-kneel next to the new mech.

The blue optics took a moment to focus, as though Drift had been mentally very, very far away. "Drift," he said, quietly.

"Yeah, got that," Blurr said, smiling broadly, charmingly. Fans had loved that easy cocky self-confidence.

Drift looked at him a moment, then dropped his gaze back down.

Shy? Well, Blurr could work with that. "So, Drift. Where you from?"

Drift shifted away, the gesture almost imperceptible. "Not important."

Probably wasn't. Still, the reticence was not giving Blurr much to work with. "Kind of a coincidence, huh? Us meeting like this?"

The blue optics met his. "Not really."

Blurr's easy smile faded, but he bucked himself up. Hard to get was one of his favorite kinds. They actually managed to hold his attention. "Hey, thanks for bringing back Perceptor."

Drift twisted as if this had made him even more uncomfortable than Blurr's previous comment. The optics narrowed. "Why did you leave him?" A trace of hostility.

"Me?" Blurr shrugged. "I didn't leave him. I was in another part of the ship. I didn't know."

Drift's hands twisted. "Don't mean you. Why any of you. He's one of you and you left him."

Blurr faltered. Yeah, he didn't have an answer for that. Besides, it didn't matter. "Ask Kup or Springer, I guess. I just move. I don't worry about all the whys and wherefores." He was fast. Literally. Speed was what he did, what he _was_.

Drift grunted.

This was not going well. Time to regroup. "What'd you do before the war, Drift?" Everyone had a good pre-war story.

"Starved."

Really? A mech who looked like that? Blurr didn't believe it. But if it was true then Drift was possibly delightfully pure. That was a hot concept. How long had it been since Blurr had seduced an innocent? Back in his racing days, that had been his specialty. Hard to get and pure? Oh this Drift was hitting on all cylinders.

"Me," Blurr said. "I was a racer. You might have heard of me? Seen me?" He straightened his shoulders.

"Blurr," Drift echoed, as if retasting the name. "The racer."

Blurr nodded, encouragingly.

Drift frowned. "Didn't have time for that slag."

"That slag?" Torn between amusement and hurt—that 'slag' had occupied just about every waking moment of Blurr's life until the racetrack had been shut down. He remembered the hollow shock of it all.

The starkly beautiful face under the white helm shifted, the mouth's full lip plates working. "Prizes for running endlessly in a circle. On a nice flat, paved track." One white shoulder armature moved, as if involving both in the shrug was just too much effort.

That's not what it—no, it was. Blurr pushed to his feet. "Glad to see you found the only thing that made my life meaningful so...beneath you." He glared down at the newcomer.

Drift's optics rode up Blurr's frame. "Not beneath me. Trying too hard not to die to pay attention." His hands clenched, and for a klik, a microklik, Blurr could almost see them in triggerwells of guns.

Whatever reply Blurr might have had was swallowed up in the sounding klaxons as their small craft bumped into the docking mouth of the _Axion._ But this, he thought, grimly, turning on his sleek blue heel, was not over. Blurr always got what he wanted.

[***]

They'd offered Drift Perceptor's quarters, Kup saying, rather awkwardly, that Perceptor, uh, wouldn't be needing them for a while. But that was another mech's property, another mech's things. It had felt like an invasion lying on another mech's berth. Too private. Too one-sided. Seeing more than he wanted to see of someone he didn't even know. He had no right.

So he'd crept out of the room and made his way to the small common room they'd crowded in earlier. An anonymous patch on no-mech's floor was much better suited to him, anyway.

Blurr's questions had bothered him. Not because they were unexpected, but because they were so soon. He'd hoped—stupidly, of course—that he could keep his history a secret, get a new start. It seems he wouldn't get that lucky.

He flopped onto his back, his hip-scabbards sliding outward along the floor to either side. What was he doing? Did he really, really mean to join the Autobots? He'd worked with them on Turmoil's ship because they had had a common aim, and he'd rescued Perceptor because, well, that's what Wing would have done. But this? Wing would not approve. He knew the jet's feelings about either side, either ideology. Could he go against that with Wing's death still so sore a wound? How was that not a betrayal? He'd have to answer that soon.

But right now, he'd have to make it through the night.

He clung to something like hope grimly, as if with both hands, as he let exhaustion and confusion pull him under.

[***]

Wing was touching him, his gentle hands sliding down Drift's sides, thumbs trailing over the seams in his new chassis. He could feel the weight of the other mech over his hips, long legs along his scabbards, the heat of his interface panel over Drift's.

Drift rolled his pelvic frame into the touch, making a soft, longing sound in his vocalizer. Sensations shimmered over his net, warm and tingling and bright, like little stars of electricity bursting and sliding down his systems.

Another stroking pair of touches, up his chassis, flirting with his shoulder armor, then down to the tight gaps in his elbows. He sighed, his own hands cupping and moving, reaching for the frame he could feel over him, the arms those hands were connected to.

That felt...somehow wrong. But before he could put the pieces together, a mouth covered his, glossa probing, insistent, demanding entry. He felt his own mouth respond, matching force for force, before a fog seemed to clear and his optics popped online.

The blue mech from the drop shuttle, the racer, was straddling his hips, bent over, optics closed, mouth working against Drift's.

Drift's grip hardened, pushing the hands away from him, angry at the deceit, bitterly despairing that it wasn't Wing, hope dying anew in his spark. The mouth tore away from his, but smiling.

"Thought I'd give you a memorable wakeup," Blurr said, cheekily, grinding his pelvis over Drift's. Drift's ventilations caught, long restrained desire boiling over his net.

"Get off me." The racer. The one who ran and partied while he starved.

Blurr pouted. "Shy, now? You weren't a few kliks ago."

Because I thought you were Wing, Drift thought, bitterly. He fought with the lust rising in him, and Deadlock's voice was beginning to drown out Wing's soft memory. Here was a mech offering himself. Why not take him? Why not?

Because, he's not...Wing.

So, you're done forever. Life of celibacy.

No. But...

Why not now? This is something you'd never have had. This is another thing you missed. On Cybertron Blurr wouldn't have said a half a word to him. Here, he was touching him, wanting him.

"Not shy," he said, his hands clamping over Blurr's forearms.

Blurr's smile grew, and it was nothing like Wing's, sharper, edgier, harder than Wing's had ever been, but it was a smile, someone pleased for Drift's attention. And he found himself hungry for that, arching his hips up against Blurr's, tugging him down into a kiss, one that he led, this time. Blurr purred over him, his hands cupping Drift's face for a moment before sliding them down between their bodies, snapping the catch on Drift's interface panel.

He laughed as Drift's spike jutted into his palm, already released, pressurized. "So eager, are you?"

"Been a while," Drift muttered, twitching as Blurr's fingers squeezed the nodes at the head of his spike.

Blurr bent to look. "Interesting," he murmured. Drift's entire body, exotic, foreign, the spike a bright gleaming silver with strange, intricate arabesques. He hitched up, opening his own interface panel, tipping forward to press his lip plates against Drift's, his glossa skimming over the dentae, feeling Drift shiver with desire, before he rocked back, gently, seating that silver spike in his valve.

Drift groaned, his head dropping back on the decking, feeling the supple warmth envelope his spike. Blurr, above him, tipped his head back, optics dimming with pleasure. For a long moment they rested there, simply feeling each other, the presence of another, around, inside. Blurr grinned, triumphant, moving his hips over Drift's, his thighs sliding along the scabbards, leaning forward to brace his hands on Drift's chassis, taking some of his weight as he began rocking slowly back and forth, the spike sliding in his valve.

Drift's hands slid over the blue armor of Blurr's forearms, up toward his chassis, the metal light and fragile, designed for speed and low weight more than protection. So different from the satiny white of Wing's armor, heavy yet gracile. And yet...

"Frag, you feel good," Blurr murmured, optics half-lidded, content, concentrating on the feel of the spike swelling the lining of his valve, the cool slide of the sleek silver against his warmth, the shocking trickles of lubricant that passed between them.

Drift said nothing, lowering his hands to the waist, the hips, pushing upward, thrusting into the move, hard, without patience, driven by raw need.

"Impatient, aren't you?" Blurr said, softly, leaning over, letting his vocalizer tickle the white audio receptor, letting Drift's hands close over his hips, stabilizing the fast, demanding thrusts. "I don't mind," he added. "Harder, if you want."

Drift growled in response, not an angry sound, but a wild, feral one, biting into Blurr's neck, driving with abandon into the valve until Blurr gave a loud sound, his body jerking, spasming against Drift's, his valve clenching down on the spike as it spilled its fluid in a hot rush.

Drift held him there, hips held up, shoved roughly against Blurr's, for a long moment before he sagged down, his hands loosening their grip. Blurr rode the release easily, lifting his head gently from Drift's savage mouth.

"Fiery thing," he said, squeezing his valve against the spike, just to watch Drift quiver. His own smile was loose and happy and sated. He pushed back with regret, lifting his weight off Drift, his valve, tenderly, off the silver spike, sliding slowly upward, giving one last squeeze before letting the head pop from his valve, the silver fluid dribbling down Drift's spike. "Next time," he said, drawing a line up the transfluid coated spike with one finger, before showily licking it, letting his optics go glazed, "maybe some place more private."

Drift nodded, slowly, somehow stuck in a haze of disbelief, his systems throbbing with pleasure.

Blurr disentangled his legs, running one hand over Drift's hip, exploring, possessive. "Just to let you know, my turn next time." He pushed to his feet, snapping his covers closed, grinning down at Drift like a prize.

[***]

Drift stood by the CR chamber. Perceptor, the one he'd saved, hung in the effervescing blue liquid. He had no idea why he'd come here, what had driven him to seek out the humming, beeping veil of sound of the repair bay. Maybe, he thought, to look at the first life he'd ever saved. The first pure save, with his own hands, his own swords. This, he thought, is mine. This is my redemption. Or the start of it. My second chance.

Perceptor hung, floated, drifted, mute, blind, helpless in the blue liquid. Drift forced himself to look at the damage, the ruptured chassis, the ruined optic. The gaping maw of the chassis looked almost too much like Wing's damage for him not to make some intuitive, strange connection.

He laid a palm on the plasglass, as if to touch this symbol of his redemption, his first stone on his new path. "Perceptor," he said, tasting the name. His optics traveled over the red armor, the black helm. Nothing like the dull, drab colors of the Decepticons. Kup had told him that Perceptor wasn't one they'd usually take on this kind of mission. "You did well," he murmured. War didn't discriminate. War didn't care. Only mechs did, and they only so long before it ground them down to nothing. And Perceptor had fought, even out of his league. That was worth saving, right there.

But they'd left him. It wasn't right. Wing had spoken the truth. He'd said it to Turmoil, and felt it echo as true now—that the Autobots had fallen from whatever ideal they might have held.

"They gave me your quarters," he said. "It isn't right." It wasn't. "I'm out of place here. Should probably go." The CR chamber made its usual bleeps and hum as its only response. "I...don't know how to do this." He wasn't even sure what he meant—how to be an Autobot. How to fit in. Pit, here he was, talking to a tube of goo. His reflection, distorted from the glassine surface, still looked, to him, too much like Deadlock, his worried smile thrown back at him twisted into some kind of sneer.

He moved back to a small table, resting his hip on its cool surface, tilting his head up to look at the blank-opticked face. It seemed only decent, even though there was no way Perceptor could see. Or hear. This was...the safest confidence he could imagine.

"One of your teammates. And I. Last night." He couldn't even really say the words, articulate what it meant. He didn't even know what it meant. He stopped, started again. "Before. Where I got this armor that you recognized," and he hated the questions that would inevitably come from that notice, "there was...someone else. His name was Wing, and he was...," Drift dropped his gaze to stare at his hands. "Everything. He turned everything I knew, thought I knew, upside down. All the rules of how I thought the world worked...," His palms spread in surrender. "I got too close. He died. I..." His hand reached up, brushing the handle of the Great Sword gently, another secret he'd only admit to the beeping dumb machine. "Never going to get that close again." Dangerous. He'd always told Wing that, always known. He just hadn't realized how much it could hurt and he still live.

"Blurr is...not that. Not again. Never." He couldn't do that again, wouldn't survive it. But Deadlock had had his...releases. No emotion. No attachment. That he could do. The old ways. Safe. "But it's something. And...someone wanted me. Wanted...me." It rang a little hollow even as he said it. Blurr didn't know him. At all. Blurr just saw the exterior; it wasn't Drift he really wanted, it was the exotic armor of New Crystal City. But still. It didn't matter.

It didn't. He refused.

He looked up at the CR chamber again, at a loss. What had he hoped to find here? Find anywhere? Still, it felt like some release of pressure just to say the words. Just to make them real, the way Wing had said that oaths and promises did. "Thanks for listening." Drift's mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. Something else he was working on.

[***]

Drift snarled in frustration as Blurr jerked his spike out of Drift's valve just before the critical threshold of charge was reached, the reverse friction giving the blue mech a fast, hard overload, transfluid spurting from his spike over Drift's belly.

Blurr grinned, bending over to plant a hard kiss on Drift's mouth. "You're too hot to let you go this soon, Drift." Nothing but the truth, Blurr thought, devouring the spectacle of his silver fluid spattered over the beautiful frame. Marked. His. And Drift's wanton writhing...also his.

He rose on his knees, digging one hand under Drift's hip. "Over," he said. Drift resisted the thought, but a quick circle of his aching, wanting valve with one hand convinced him. He flopped, begrudgingly, onto his belly, to find his hips jerked up and back, Blurr still on his knees, sinking his spike in the valve again with the ease of long practice that even time had not dulled. Blurr's fingers curled over the scabbards for leverage.

Blurr took a moment to take in the view: the broad, white shoulders, the naked attachment for the big sword, now laying off to one side, the helm twisting from side to side, Drift trying to catch a glimpse of him. He felt the valve, charge diminishing, squeezing down along his spike. Oh this one was eager, better than half the mechs who'd thrown themselves at him at the height of his career.

Blurr reached, hooking one hand over an attachment point for the sword, jerking back on it like a rein or bit, yanking Drift's body back against his, pushing his pelvic span forward. And again. And then again, hard, solid thrusts. Drift shuddered beneath him, around him, hands clawing at the berth, driven by raw lust. Blurr felt his own overload charge build again, too fast, too readily, the intoxicating sight of the shuddering body given over to his sharp thrusts driving him beyond his restraint.

He barely managed to pull out in time, feeling Drift's valve start to ripple with the first eddies of overload. He'd wanted to stay inside, to feel that work around him. But he managed, spilling his fluid over the white aft plating, the black torso armor, like hot rain.

Drift, infuriated, frustrated, whirled, one elbow nearly clipping Blurr on the head. Blurr laughed. Feisty one. His favorite kind, because when they overloaded, when he finally let them, they came hard. He let Drift's motion sail past him, spinning to straddle the torso, letting his weight flatten the chassis to the berth before bending over, closing his mouth around the spike's head.

The body beneath him jolted. Blurr laughed, his mouth still closed around the spike, rolling over it with his glossa. Drift sucked in a sharp, almost hissing vent behind him. And Blurr had an idea. He reached over, tugging one of the short swords from the hip scabbard, distracting Drift by letting his mouth slide down the spike. He felt the hips surge up against him, pushing the spike at his mouth. So easily led, these mechs, Blurr thought. So eager. He got off on the power, the ability to bend them to his will, more than the physical contact.

For example. He shifted his own hips back, his feet bumping for a klik awkwardly against the shoulders to bring his spike hovering over Drift's mouth. Who...took the hint, if awkwardly. He hadn't had much practice, apparently, the mouth that closed on Blurr's spike hesitant, the glossa poking rather than knowledgeable. Which was its own kind of hotness, really, Blurr thought, that he had a novice. Technique was its own aphrodisiac, but sometimes, no technique at all stood in for something just as arousing. And besides, this was merely a distraction for...this:

The cold metal of the sword hilt sliding into the overworked valve. He felt the body beneath him go rigid, could hear the valve's calipers flutter in response to the intrusion. And the sight of it—he sank the handle up to the crossguard and...oh, frag. That was almost too much. His mouth began working the spike again, his optics never leaving the sword—or the blade jutting from it, which twisted and rocked to its own tempo.

Hands closed over his hips, fingertips hard and gripping against his thin armor, as he began rocking those same hips, sliding his spike smoothly in and out of Drift's amateur mouth. Frag, he wanted to see that, too, that white helm between his thighs, that mouth a blissful 'o' around his spike. Later. Another time. Right now, this was too much to enjoy, the twitches and twinges of the hips under him, the spike eager, almost leaping into his mouth, and the sword. Just the thought of it, a cold, inflexible bar in the valve, was enough to send a tremor of its own over his net.

Now, he wanted it now. Wanted to feel Drift's overload, watch him writhe, taste the charge in his transfluid.

He buckled down to his work, glossa flicking expertly at the nodes on the spike, building charge, building intensity, sucking and releasing tension on the sensitive nodes, until the hips beneath him leapt upward, his mouth flooding with the sweet oily taste of transfluid from a long-delayed overload, the sword twitching and jumping as the valve clamped down on the hilt. Hard hands clawed at his hips, His own overload was almost an afterthought, a simple release of fluid, that inexpert Drift swallowed only clumsily.

He flicked his glossa over the spike, feeling the hypersensitized nodes prickle against him, Drift half-yelping beneath him, his ventilations sharp and short and desperate. He finally let go, sliding his mouth up the spike,holding the tip in the circle of his lip plates before popping his mouth off. Drift gasped.

Blurr sat up, shifting his weight to come to a rest on one hip beside the trembling, prone white mech. "You," he said, "are fraggin' exquisite." He laughed at his own pun, the taste of the transfluid on his glossa. He reached to withdraw the sword, laughing at Drift's embarrassed arousal.

Drift said nothing, shaking his head as if that was some sort of answer, his body shaking, hands unsteady. His torso was still splattered with Blurr's fluid—an abstract silver spatter pattern. Marked. Blurr's. Blurr purred at the sight, at the thought of Drift having to walk down the hallway to his own quarters. Someone catching him, maybe, wearing the so-obvious marks of interfacing. Yes.

Blurr's gaze dropped to his own hips, his spike, sleek and clean, one silver droplet shimmering from the tip. And then...the dents on his hips. Dents, where two strong black hands had grabbed him, clutched into him. His smile, his humor, faded.

"Get out," he snapped.

Drift's face shifted from post-coital languor to confusion. "What?"

Blurr rubbed at one panel as if he could wipe the dents away. "Out! Now."

Drift propped up on one elbow, optics still bleary from the overload. "What did I do?"

"This!" Blurr pointed. "You don't mark me. You don't damage me. Do you know who I am?"

Drift's optics cleared, their light going cold and hard. "No," he said, in a voice that matched the optics perfectly. "I don't." He rolled off the berth, snatching at his swords, and left, without even one backward glance.


	2. Chapter 2

R  
>IDW<br>Drift, Perceptor, Springer, refs Drift/Blurr  
>ref'd sticky <p>

If Perceptor could have seen, or heard, anything from his suspension in the tank of energon-rich sterile fluid, he would have seen a white mech storm into the repair facility, his armor almost hazy-bright in the darkness, spattered with silver on his abdomen, on his back plating, down his dark thighs.

Drift was glad Perceptor couldn't see or hear, as he tore open the cabinets, searching, snarling, until he found what he was looking for: a decon brush. After propping his Great Sword against the wall, he slammed the cleanser tap on in the room's small, emegency decon stall, and stood, for a long moment, under the spray, brush slack in his hand, letting the warm cleanser rain down over him. He tilted his head up into the spray, trying to let his anger sheet off him along with Blurr's transfluid. Humiliation and anger warred within him.

He hadn't expected much from the whole thing with Blurr. Simple mutual gratification. Physical lust. Nothing more. But he couldn't deal with...Blurr. That attitude. As though he'd left the track behind, but kept all of the entitlement and ego.

And for his part, Drift envied him both. What ego he'd had had been rooted in violence, his ability to kill, and Wing...had made him doubt all that. Even though Wing killed, it had had a different quality to it, and Wing had taken no pride from it.

Drift growled, and seized the brush, beginning to scrape it over his smudged, stained armor. It had been all right at the time; frustrating as the Pit, but he'd understood that want to control, to rile and refuse.

But now...it was a stain, marking him.

The cleanser stung into the rough scraping he made with the brush over his belly. He swiped less effectively at his back, knowing there was no way he could reach it all, tilting forward, palms on the wall to hold his torso at an angle, hoping the cleanser's fall would get rid of the worst of it. At least enough that it told no tales.

Drift was no one's.

He let the cleanser sheet over his sides, down his legs, feeling it warm against his thighs, down his shins. Another time he might have admitted it felt good. Another time, he might have enjoyed it. Not now.

He flicked open his interface hatch, scrubbing furiously with the brush, hissing at the crossing of the boundary of pain as he savaged his equipment. Needed, wanted, to erase all trace of Blurr on him, every shred of pleasure.

He kicked off the tap, standing still, letting the cleanser falling off his frame diminish from a rain of droplets to a few random drips, the cleanser cooling, nearly chilling his armor. His optics caught Perceptor's frame, hanging in the tank.

"Sorry," he said, stepping out of the small stall. "Just...can't take your teammate." He wondered what Perceptor thought of Blurr, if they were friends. Or more. Another stupid Autobot thing.

He gave a wry smile. Like he expected an answer. He grabbed a cleansing rag, swiping it down his armor, pausing, and then, almost shyly, half-turned to dry off his equipment, swabbing down the spike, around the valve.

He sighed, snapping the covers shut, wavering for a moment. Return to his quarters? No. Blurr might look for him there. And it still felt wrong to be surrounded by another mech's things, like he was a ghost animating a corpse he didn't even recognize. Like they were trying to jam him into some box into which he wasn't sure he could fit.

Frag. Drift grabbed his Great Sword, looked around the room with a sigh of frustration, before flopping, on the ground, wedging himself between the regen tank and the bank of monitors. Comfortable pressure on his shoulders, a space that back in the gutters of Iacon he would have found an excellent hideyhole. Strange the comfort we find in our familiar fears.

He cradled the Great Sword, resting his cheek against the cool metal of the blade, the hum of the regen systems filling the room, lulling him like a surf of white noise. Not to recharge, not yet, but soothing the tops of his anger, his discontent less sharp-edged. He snorted at himself, optics drifting up to the tank's contents, Perceptor's body hanging, immobile, infinitely patient.

"Thanks for letting me crash here," he said, feeling ridiculous, but too spun up to sleep. "Just...yeah."

He stroked the sword. "Used to recharge like this all the time." He dropped his gaze. "Grew up in the gutters. Not...one of you shiny pretty Autobots. Think it shows." He sighed. "What was I thinking? This...isn't going to work. Not a team player." He gave a bitter laugh at memory. No. Deadlock had not been much for collaboration. Or foresight.

His fingers stroked down the sword, almost reverently. Wing's sword. So heavy with Wing and all the white jet had stood for that sometimes it felt unliftable, but a burden he'd never want to put down. It was what Turmoil had always said—he needed some control, some central force. He'd found one.

He looked up at the blue tank, Perceptor's red lower-leg. "Ever see something you'd always dreamed of? I mean, all your life. From that part of you that's so deep it almost...tears at your spark? Something you'd convinced yourself couldn't really exist? Because it was easier to believe it was impossible than...that it was real and you couldn't have it?"

"And...Wing." Even saying the name hurt, but he forced himself to, to taste the pain of it, make sure it still hurt. It was a pain that should hurt...forever. What he had ruined, thrown away, before he knew better. "Probably going to sound stupid. Don't think he was perfect," it felt like a betrayal. Right now, his death still such a gaping crater in Drift's mind, Wing was perfect. Forever and always. "But he wanted me. Me. Not my rank, or reputation. Me. I'd...," he shivered, suddenly, as if cold, wrapping his arms childishly around the sword, not caring how stupid it looked or he sounded. Perceptor couldn't hear him anyway. Just...talking to himself, really. Out loud. Just to get perspective. Explain what the frag had just happened with Blurr. "Never happened like that before. Me. Wanting _me,_ you know?" Blurr hadn't wanted him. Just...the newness, the foreign. He'd thought at first that's what Wing had wanted but..no. There'd been plenty of time for that polish to wear off, and...nothing like what had happened just now.

Blurr. Frag you, racer.

He leaned into the tank's base, as if to take some mute comfort from the steady vibration. "Don't know what he saw in me. Still don't." Never will. "But he wasn't stupid. He saw...something." A half-hearted shrug. "Who knows," he murmured, resting his helm against the cool humming metal, "maybe one day I'll see it myself."

[***]

The part of leadership Springer really hated was this: onboard, in transit, when all of the boredom built up into petty squabbles. And petty squabbles among the Wreckers tended to involve high caliber weaponry. Or equally atomic emotions. Yeah, Wreckers and 'maturity' were...not synonymous. Kind of like matter and antimatter.

And Blurr? Just made everything happen...faster. Great.

Still, he had to check it out, because, yeah, to be honest? He wasn't so keen on this new guy, himself. Kup had a tendency to pick up strays—like Perceptor—without really seeing them clearly. Anyone who had an interesting story—what a sucker Kup was for stories!

So the new guy, apparently, overnighted in the repair bay. Not cool.

Springer opened the door. It took a moment to find, but sure enough—the white sweep of Drift's ankle armor, the strange, almost pointed, black toe plates,jutting out from behind the tank. What...the...?

"Hey," Springer barked.

A hiss, and a flash of metal, the feet withdrawing into a feral crouch. "What." A surly truculence, the tone Springer knew too well—he used it himself when he'd been caught out at something.

"What the frag you doing back there?" Springer planted his hands on his hips as Drift pulled his way to his feet, stowing his sword, clutching the larger sword's sheath.

"Nothng."

Springer glared.

Drift's optics kept sliding to the floor. Hiding something. "Recharging."

Right. "Something wrong with the quarters we assigned you?" An edge to his voice.

"No. Just...not..." Drift looked down at the large sword in his hands, then slung it, in a smooth, practiced move, between his shoulders.

"Not...what?"

"Never mind." Drift moved to push past Springer.

Springer stopped him with a hand on the red ring of his wrist, twisting until the white mech's optics met his. "Going somewhere, Drift?"

"To my quarters."

Springer's optics narrowed. "You might consider staying there. Where we can find you." He thrust the other's wrist away, turning to examine the nook Drift had been in, checking for damage, sabotage. He felt Drift's hot glare on him. Go ahead, neutral, he thought. Notice we're suspicious. Not all of us are as trusting as Kup.


End file.
